bongiorno

Finally, it's on Netflix streaming—but not for long.

Breaking Away.

Yes, one of the few bike racing movies, one that I should probably own (if I still believed in owning CDs and DVDs) that was shown in Grant Park earlier this year to kick off bike-to-work week.

I was loathe to attribute it to an archetype, as if they were even avoidable. A real story about real characters, the movie is a far cry from Shutter Island, a plot device wrapped in clichés.

It's about 4 recently graduated high school friends who have nothing to show for their first summer out. No jobs, no aspirations, only feelings of inadequacy for being townies in a college town. Sons of stonecutters, quarrymen, they're called cutters. And you can see the word impale itself in their flesh each time it's leveled at them—like a knife.

Dave stands out. Having won an Italian bike, he's been obsessed with bikes and Italy, speaking either Italian or broken English with an affected accent. He's blissed out living in his delusion while his friends and father are downtrodden realists, even pessimists.

Dave meets a girl in this state who believes him to be an Italian exchange student, presumably studying at the University. Double lie.

But he's so happy, albeit due explicitly to his idealism and naïveté.

He reminds me of myself for a few months in the Fall of '07.

And naïve idealism is precisely what makes his fall so hard. The Italians come to town for a race; Dave participates, spends the first half of the race catching up to them; he tries to hang with them, riding with them, speaking Italian; they [take offense to this?] stick a pipe in his spokes and crash him out of the race. [Were they earnestly worried about losing to him?]

In Dave's case, his idealism was shattered, his flesh bruised. He stops speaking Italian, even to his girl [who dumps him], and he suddenly resembles any one of his dejected friends. His father finally recognizes him, content that he's finally acting "normal" again. Or just real?

His father had been highly put out by the Italian act, and though he probably didn't realize, maybe deep down he was just concerned that his son's idealized delusion would turn around to cause him pain. Was he just being (subconsciously) protective or just miffed that his son could be so namby-pamby happy?

Then there's the big race. The Little 500. It goes as you might expect, and we feel the requisite joy at the end.

As for an archetype, I had forgotten about the "Rags to Riches" type, one that includes a "Coming of Age" type. Each of the 4 high school friends develops as the story progresses, leaving behind their insecurities and stepping boldly into new terrain. And the hero, the main character Dave, experiences the "False Ending" in which the bad guys win and it looks bleak. But that makes the triumph at the end all the greater.

Win.